


Transference

by starsoverhead



Category: Knight Rider (1982)
Genre: AI-to-human, M/M, lightning did it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-19
Updated: 2012-08-19
Packaged: 2017-11-12 11:19:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/490322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsoverhead/pseuds/starsoverhead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some unforeseen consequences crop up when someone plays with technology they don't fully understand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Forced Change

The storm promised to be a big one. Michael knew that when he'd driven to the hotel on the edge of LA - he could've gone on to the Foundation, but he'd chosen instead to weather it out here. After all, this hotel had sheltered parking and he wanted another night away from Devon. Devon was a great man, but Michael wanted a rest. Just a little breather - a night of watching HBO and watching the storm out of a nearly panoramic second floor window while he drank cold soda from the machine down the hall. Lightning was looking promising in the distance as he settled in, settled back, to relax. And it seemed Kitt was relaxing, too. There wasn't so much as a chirp from his comlink as he waited, eyes half closed. It was going to be a good night.

\---

One floor below, Kitt fought a losing battle.

His comm systems had been cut out first, leaving him unable to call for help as a program, alien to his system, executed itself in perfection, using the conductivity of his MBS to transmit a routine into his CPU that cut off his contact from the car. As swiftly as he opened one channel, five closed. He tried to access his line to Michael's comlink, to Bonnie, to Devon - even to April, but there was nothing.

His world grew darker and darker, his sensory systems going next, but he felt the hand on his door, felt it open, though he struggled to keep it closed, but now, in such turmoil, there was nothing he could do.

The power button was pressed. False key turned. His engine came alive and he couldn't cut it off.

He had awareness to know he was being driven, but even that dimmed.

\---

Jeremy Matthews crowed as he raced the black Trans Am through the black night further from LA. With this kind of research material, his Master's was guaranteed. That was, if they didn't just push him straight through to Doctor's. God, wouldn't that be fantastic!

He wouldn't keep it for long, he told himself. Just long enough to look through some of the programming, long enough to look through the mechanics of the thing - because it was too amazing not to. He had to find out what made this car tick, and he'd monitored the activity as his program had worked. It'd been perfect, undercutting the AI, working while it drove until it stopped for the night. Fantastic how it'd anticipated and ... God, it was perfect. The car was his now, at least for a while.

Twenty miles out, he pulled the car off the road. Here was as good a place as any to get started.

"All right, all right," he murmured to himself as he went through the bag he'd thrown onto the passenger seat. A notebook and pencil later, he was making note of all the systems he could see displayed that he wanted to take a look into. Some were self explanatory - doors, windows, eject L and R. Only an idiot couldn't guess what that did. Turbo Boost was a little more mysterious, but he figured he didn't really want to press that button.

Some little systems, though, he wondered about. Pursuit mode - that seemed obvious, but what did it really do? And what about Super Pursuit mode?

"Chemical analyzer," Matthews continued, writing in a hasty scrawl across the notebook. None of anything on his person had his name on it, intentionally. He didn't want to leave any hints as to his identity. It was bad enough he'd opened the door bare-handed, but he figured he could wipe down the steering wheel and the door handles later. "Microjam... microlock... Damn. When they say a car comes loaded..."

There were panels in the center console he started to look through, and was surprised to see the car still had a glove compartment. Looks like they didn't rip out everything GM did the first time around.

But behind this one was a little strap that looked to go around someone's arm.

He looked it over curiously and started to consider its use. He knew it couldn't be used for harm - that had to be one of this thing's tenets. If it didn't have the Three Laws, it had to have something close. That meant it was something... some kind of sensor. Galvanic response? Probably part of it.

What else could they sense through skin now, he asked himself. Blood oxygen, he answered. And then went further. Strap around the arm - blood pressure, too. Maybe even chemical composition of blood? Like alcohol level, any foriegn substances...

He laughed aloud as he strapped the thing around his bare upper arm, grinning like mad. Loaded. The real, original loaded car.

The storm outside hadn't even entered his mind until, suddenly, his world was white, he felt the air knocked from him, and he thought he felt his heart stop.

The car's hull steamed around him, rain instantly heated into gas from the one deft lightning strike.

\---

"Bon? Hey, it's Michael, I--"

"Michael. Thank God. You need to come to the Foundation. Now."

"...Bon? What's the matter? I can't... I mean, I could get a cab--"

"I know. You don't have Kitt."

"...And you're not yelling at me?"

"No, because he's here."

"Thank Go--"

"Don't thank anyone yet. He... Just... just get here, Michael, however you can."

\---

Finally, the veil started to lift. He saw again, at last, and he felt so grateful, though he could only... see. Perhaps some of his sensors had been damaged - perhaps he only had video now, plain video. But that didn't account for how Michael and Bonnie were looking at him.

He looked at them as well, confused. Michael looked almost angry - at that patient stage of angry he reached when something serious had happened. And Bonnie looked... absolutely crushed.

What had happened?

Michael approached, and that was when he realised that he was looking at them from the inside of his cabin. Had all of his cameras malfunctioned but this one?

When Michael opened the door, he asked softly, "Michael? What's wrong?"

And didn't recognize his own voice.

"I don't know how you got here. Or how you know my name. But maybe you can tell me what you're doing in my car, and why he's not responding to any of Bonnie's efforts."

He recognized that tone, and he knew that, to whomever heard that tone, it could mean danger. But why was Michael saying that to him?

And then he felt... a burning. His video sensors burned. And they went dark for a split second.

"I think I'm malfunctioning," said that voice that was not his. "My video sensors aren't online correctly, and they can't seem to stabilise. Michael, what happened to me?"

Michael's hands came near and grasped...

Him?

Him.himhimhimhimhimhimhim-- and the world faded once more.

\---

"Michael..." Bonnie stared at the young man Michael now held limp from the front of his T-shirt. "What did you do to him?"

"Nothing," he said, dumbfounded, staring at the kid who'd just... fainted when he'd pulled him out of Kitt's cabin. One arm still had the blood analyser cuff around it, and Michael nodded for Bonnie to come detach it. "I just... picked him up, and he knocked out..."

Not that the questioning had been going well, anyway. In fact, some of those answers, those tones, the way those words just rolled out of the kids mouth, had made his stomach churn. He didn't want to believe what he'd heard.

It took both of them, but eventually, the kid was laid out on the couch there in Bonnie's pseudo-office, still out cold.

And they waited. And they didn't talk. Neither of them wanted to believe what they'd heard, and the awkwardness was proof enough of that.

It was nearly twenty minutes later that the kid finally started to stir. By that point, Michael had gone through his pockets and the backpack in Kitt's passenger seat. Not a hint of ID. No clue who this kid was, except that his notebook had had copious notes about Kitt's systems. He was a plain kid, really. Brown hair, cut short, brown eyes, from what he'd seen before he'd spontaneously lost consciousness just from being lifted.

Michael'd not even bumped his head.

But he was right there when the kid's eyes opened again, and was waiting quietly even when he heard his name (how the hell did this kid know his name?) from the kid's mouth.

"Maybe you can tell us this time," he asked, his voice a little less menacing, he thought. "What did you do with Kitt?"

The answer he got, the tone he got it in, so quiet and almost hurt, struck at that feeling in stomach that was building up again.

"But Michael," he heard, "I am Kitt."

This time, it was Michael who had to fight to stay conscious.

"Oh God."


	2. Explanation

"I'm not precisely sure how it happened."

There were three people in the room besides him - the three most vital. One stood with crossed arms and listened, looking at him levelly and, he thought, with a little doubt. Another sat with elbows on knees, fingers knit, brows knit together and waiting, patient, for the rest of the story. The third was active, listening while working, hands occupied but quiet. No-one was speaking except for him.

"It had to start somewhere," said Devon.

Kitt nodded, and discovered it was not only instinctive but an odd sensation for someone not used to having a head or neck. "That's the difficulty," said a voice that wasn't his, but had his vocabulary and usage. "I can't pinpoint precisely where. I can't test the hardware, as I now have no hardware to test. But-" now he amended "-I do know when the worst of it started, and that was after Michael had gone upstairs at the hotel."

Devon leveled his gaze at Michael, slightly accusatory, and Michael expected it. "Hey, I didn't do anything. I didn't push any new buttons or fiddle with anything in the dash, I swear," he insisted, holding up his hands to show innocence. "I'm just as worried about this as you are. How do you think I felt when I went downstairs and found him gone?"

Kitt noticed, with a faint pang, that Michael had looked over at the car. But that was understandable, he told himself. That was where he was supposed to be. Now, though, the car just sat there, scanner dark, engine silent, making no snide comments because he was over here, and couldn't even talk with his own voice.

"This isn't anything Michael could've done if he'd wanted to," Bonnie broke in, halfway out from under the car on her creeper. "I think I just found what did it."

That was enough to bring all three men at the front of the lab to their feet, though one was more hesitant than the other two, not quite used to walking. The body did well enough when he let it react and didn't think about such things as how he was supposed to balance, but it was difficult to not think.

"What is it?" Devon asked, crouching nearby. Michael did the same, but Kitt stood back, feeling apprehensive.

"This little thing right here," she said, and placed her finger just under a piece of mechanical debris that was no larger than a single bit of gravel. "From what I can see, having just glanced at it, it's a reciever. And I think it goes with what we found in the passenger seat."

"The handheld thingie with the screen?"

This time, it was Bonnie who looked at Michael with a flat gaze. "Yes. The 'handheld thingie with the screen'. I think that whatever the transmitter was sending was recieved right here, and transmitted..." She gave the thing a tug, and it came off after some stubborn clinging. "...directly through the MBS."

"Directly through-- But... is that possible?"

"Well, obviously," said Bonnie, gesturing toward the stranger, who happened to be Kitt. "But honestly, yes, it is. Kitt's MBS has embedded sensors for proximity, temperature, pressure - this just used those sensors to transmit what it wanted into Kitt as... a hidden signal, I'd guess. I'll need to go over the handheld a little more thoroughly now that we have an idea of what it was for."

Michael stood, looking from Bonnie to the car, to the young man who was somehow his AI partner. "Wait," he said quietly. Kitt recognized the look in his eye - he'd seen it before, when Michael made those almost terrifying logic leaps that somehow turned out to be right. He braced himself.

"Here we have... a transmitter, on Kitt's hull, and another one that this kid's carrying around, and then the kid hooks himself into Kitt with the blood analyzer cuff."

"Right..." Bonnie nodded.

"And you're the one who said that mark on Kitt's -- uh."

They all went quiet.

Kitt, in the body he was aware was not his, did what he couldn't have done as a car.

He looked away.

"I just meant," Michael continued, now much more quietly, awkwardly, "that... that he kinda set himself up in the loop. He set up the loop... with everything he did, and then the lightning made the last ... The lightning closed the circuit."

They were all still quiet. They were waiting. And Kitt was the one who spoke. "All I knew," he said, "was that I was dying. My CPU was being burned away, and I was trying to retreat into a piece of safe hardware."

"And you ended up... in..."

"I ended up," he said, now much more quietly, "possibly taking the life of a human."

This time, no-one broke the silence. And Kitt walked away.

\---

Devon had gone to look for him. Michael stood at Bonnie's work table with one hand over his face and the other in a fist on the tabletop. "Could I have done that any worse," he muttered, with little inflection except for a growl at himself. He kept seeing the expressions on Kitt's face - before he looked away, before he walked away, expressions he was damn sure Kitt didn't even know he'd made. He wasn't doing it to play emotions. Michael knew it, but he knew Kitt also didn't know enough to hide how he felt. And Michael had felt like he'd been punched in the gut. Just like Kitt had looked. Gutted by his best friend.

"Michael," Bonnie said, standing in front of the car, its hood open, a grease rag in her hands, "listen to me. This is what we think of when we think of Kitt. Four wheels. A turbine and eight cylinders. Digital readouts, lights and speakers. All this is... All we can think of it as, right now? Is a reminder that he's more." She laughed weakly, sitting on the prow. "Seems like we end up due a reminder once a year or so. Sometimes more, sometimes less."

"And I'm lucky he got through the lightning strike," Michael agreed, though he still didn't turn around. It was a heavy weight, trying to match the two truths, trying to reconcile Kitt with the kid.

"We all are. We're the pieces, but he's the glue."

"Yeah, you're right."

"Usually am."

Finally, Michael was able to smile a little. "I'm gonna go look for him."

"You do that. Get him to smile. For all of us."

He nodded. "I'm going to take it as a personal challenge.

\---

Kitt knew Devon was there, but Kitt also knew that Devon hadn't come near, which he was grateful for. Humans seemed to have proximity sensors, he thought as he sat still. He didn't like this feeling, and was grateful, also, for the slight distraction that Devon provided. It kept him from dwelling on it. It was an introduction to humanity, he thought, and so far he disliked it. The churning in his stomach and the burning in his eyes - he wanted both to go away, but couldn't force it. He felt like he was trembling, which made him want to check systems he didn't have. That only made him even more aware of his situation.

This wasn't right. This wasn't him, and even Michael had made it clear enough just where he stood on that matter.

That churning came back. But at least he didn't feel like he was going to pass out again. That had been embarassing enough the first time. He raised his hands, though, and scrubbed them over his face in a gesture that the body obviously knew.

When the hand touched his shoulder, he felt himself tense. Too introspective, he realised belatedly, to have realised that Michael was nearby. "Hey," he said.

Kitt glanced back to the door. Devon wasn't there anymore.

"He headed off. Figured I could talk to you."

"There isn't so much to talk about."

The hand on his shoulder tightened. "Hey. Don't do that. Don't lie to me."

"I'm not programmed to lie."

"You've done it before anyway. By omission, at least."

"Can we not argue over semantics?"

Kitt still hadn't looked at him, but he didn't have to to know he'd just spurred a slight droop of Michael's shoulders and a sigh. The sigh, at least, he could hear.

Michael hadn't gone into this thinking it would be easy. He hadn't known where Kitt would end up, but somehow this second-floor window seemed appropriate. He would've thought outdoors, but this seemed almost as good. It was a place Kitt couldn't have gone before. Maybe that's what had drawn him, Michael thought as he looked out the window as well. It wasn't the driveway below but the reflecting pool and the gardens. It was a really pretty view. One he thought Kitt hadn't seen.

Instead, Kitt had seen enough to send anyone reeling, and Michael had... had what? Had... disacknowledged him? That was the best thing Michael could think of, and it probably wasn't even a real word. "I don't want to argue over anything. Least of all semantics or syntax or semaphore. I just wanted to make sure you were all right."

"I'm not all right." While the admission wasn't a hundred percent Kitt, the words, the tone, were, Michael thought.

"All right, it's a start," he nodded. "Tell me about it."

Kitt looked up at him. The movement was sharp and his voice was strained and he heard, more than felt, the tears in his eyes, and he hated them. He wanted what was his, he wanted his body, his scanner to hide behind, and not this biokinetic mess that surrounded him with all of its processes that he had no control over. He was becoming afraid and angry and frustrated and something inside him was breaking. And that was the root of it. He knew it, had known it, since he had realised what had happened. "Michael," he said, almost pleading, "I've killed someone."

And Michael knew. That was so deeply against Kitt's programming that it had to hurt. And he could see in that unguarded expression that that, coupled with what he'd said, and what his partner was going through, was starting to fray what seams had started to unravel when he'd been woke up from the driver's seat just hours before.

"God, Kitt." There wasn't any time to think. He hugged his partner and hugged him as tightly as he could, leaving no room for struggle. He'd done this before, with panicking women and kids when their situation finally hit them. "Kitt... Kitt, it isn't your fault," he whispered. The soothing motions came naturally - stroking his hair and rubbing his back and halfway rocking him as he felt Kitt start to tremble, and then felt his breath start to hitch.

"It isn't your fault," he repeated, over and over, while Kitt cried.

This isn't, he thought, his own throat tight, the way humanity should be introduced to anyone.


	3. Sleepless

Night had come - as night always does. He'd been given a room with a fantastic bed and a beautiful view out over the garden, but he couldn't sleep. He'd been trying since eleven. Now, the clock read two in the morning, but he still couldn't sleep.

Bonnie's advice had been well-said and well-meant. Lay down and let nature take care of the rest. He'd been trying that. He'd tried laying on his back, on his stomach, on both sides, with pillows and without, with more pillows and with one. No matter what he'd tried, though, he couldn't manage real sleep. Instead, he'd managed to stare through the window at the faint light from the moon and the security lights, his mind slightly distanced.

He didn't really like the concept of sleep. Sleep sounded too much like a sensor void - darkness, blackness he couldn't get through. Like being lost in his own mind, with no feedback, no feed at all. It left a part of him very nervous, because that had happened to him before. He'd been left in a cardboard box, beneath crumpled paper, with nothing left to connect him to the outside world. He'd been silently panicking the whole while, and hated that April had been the first thing he'd really seen when he'd gotten his senses back. He'd wanted it to be Michael, because he was the most reassuring sight of all.

But he didn't want to have reason to be frightened like that. He didn't really want to admit he could be frightened. After all, he'd already wept on Michael. That had been bad enough. That was beyond forgiveness. He'd never do that again, he told himself. Never, because of the way it left him feeling now.

He'd placed a burden on Michael, he felt. His burden. Yes, it had felt good to hear the reassurance that it wasn't his fault - but he didn't really believe it. He had been actively seeking a way out of his CPU. It was his fault that he'd entered the human's body, even if he didn't know how he'd done it, or how it was even possible. He could blame the circuit completed by the lightning, forcing him out of his CPU, but he had consciously found space there, inside this person's mind.

Once more, he thought - this time, said aloud, "This isn't where I belong."

Climbing up out of the bed was only natural after that. The feel of carpet on his bare feet was odd, but largely ignored in favour of the half-insensate urge he followed. It was the body instructing the walk, not him, as he let himself out of the room and eventually down the stairs. He knew where he was going, in a vague way. When he came to the lab and let himself in with codes that were as imprinted on his memory as his identity, he felt somewhat better. But when he climbed into the car - even if the placement was wrong, and his viewpoint even worse - the peace that settled over him was welcome. Kitt closed his eyes as he rested there, barely remembering to close the door. "Better," he exhaled.

And this time, before he knew it, he was asleep.

\---

"Kitt?"

He hadn't heard the door open, but the sight before him, crouching in front of him with a hand on his cheek, was plain. "Bonnie?"

She was in a nightgown and robe - for once, she'd slept at Foundation HQ instead of her apartment, because of what had happened. Something in Kitt thought she was beautiful, reacting with a faint warming of his blood, but he ignored it. He had no interest in physiological reactions when he was so near to resting.

"What is it?" he asked quietly.

"What are you doing down here?" she asked in return, with a little warm smile. She seemed partly amused, and he liked that expression on her.

He couldn't tell her that he'd come down here because this was where he belonged instead of upstairs, in that room, alone. He told her, instead, "I couldn't sleep."

"Kitt..." This time, her hand smoothed over his hair. "Come on," she murmured. "Come back inside with me. I should've known you couldn't sleep by yourself." She stood and offered her hands, which he took and let himself be led back inside, docile. He trusted Bonnie, after all. He half-expected to be led back into the room he'd been given, but they went further, back to the room she sometimes called hers, when the nights ran long and driving home was no longer an option.

"Here. Lay down," she urged him, and after removing her robe, slid in beside him, hugging him. "Now you can lean on me and sleep."

But he was so close to exhaustion that he didn't need the extra urging. When he felt her close, so trusted and real, and could rest his head on her shoulder, he slept once more. Just like the sleep he'd gotten in the car, it was real and deep, truly refreshing. It didn't feel insensate here, where he wasn't alone. It felt like trust.


	4. Remember

"Bonnie? Have you seen Kitt?" Michael walked into the kitchen, hearing the telltale sounds of someone stirring around inside. He knew it wasn't Devon - there was no way. The man ate things like lobster bisque and steak tartar. Not, if Michael's nose served him right, fruit waffles and bacon.

"Huh?" When Bonnie turned, Michael had to smile a little at the way her hair moved. His mind was on Kitt, though.

"Have you seen Kitt?" he repeated. "I'm a little worried. I looked in his room and he isn't there."

"Oh, yeah," she nodded as she pulled another couple waffles out of the waffle press. "He stayed with me last night. He's probably showering."

Hearing that sent a twinge through Michael. Kitt had stayed with Bonnie. That was... completely understandable, he told himself. Bonnie was always the person he went to when something had gone wrong with him. When a system was shorted or when there was a new doodad to add on or when there was a question he wanted answered that he thought Michael couldn't handle. Why did hearing that Kitt had spent the night with her make him feel so strange?

Bonnie treated it as matter of fact. That meant nothing could be wrong with it.

But he still had that twinge.

"Stayed with you, huh?"

"Yeah, poor thing." Bonnie chuckled as she slid a plate onto the table. "I don't think he moved once he fell asleep."

"Heh." Michael nodded and sat down. As good as waffles and bacon had smelled a few minutes before, they'd lost all their appeal. "I... don't think I'm hungry," he said a second later, standing up again. "I'll just have a cup of coffee."

She blinked, looking up at him. "You sure? I've made enough for three."

"Nah, just coffee for me." He flashed a smile and poured himself a mug before heading outside. He wanted it to be cold outside, but it was warm instead. Balmy. Good on any other morning but this one, when his mood had taken a sudden downfall.

\---

Kitt heard the outside door close and wondered about it for a matter of moments. His stomach was growling at the scent of food, and he barely murmured a good morning before diving into the meal on the table. The waffles were easily demolished, and the bacon followed. Kitt was into his orange juice before he heard Bonnie laughing.

"Kitt, what on earth are you doing?"

"Eating breakfast," he answered as he swallowed.

"Didn't you eat anything last night?"

He had to think - had he eaten anything? With everything that had been going on, eating hadn't been the first thing on his mind. First, there had been the matter of humanity. Then there had been... coming to terms with the idea that he'd possibly killed someone. Food had never come into the equation. "...No?"

More bacon arrived in front of him. "Here, then. Eat some more - looks like I made extra."

His mind didn't catch up to his stomach until he'd already practically inhaled one strip. He didn't like it - it left him confused and unsettled. His mind and his body were supposed to act in unison. "Made extra?" he asked, the second strip already half-eaten. "Hasn't Michael come down yet?"

"Yeah, he came down. And then he headed out." Bonnie set the skillet on a cold burner and turned to face him, arms lightly crossed. "I don't know what happened, but he asked about you, and then decided he wasn't hungry before leaving."

"Leaving?" Kitt frowned. "Where did he go?" Michael wasn't supposed to leave without him. That... just wasn't right. That wasn't how their partnership worked. They went together, and-- wait, he remembered something. The door had closed as he'd come downstairs. "Outside," he decided, and, with his glass in hand, he left the kitchen, Bonnie saying... something behind him that he didn't bother listening to.

Later, he'd realise that he didn't even really hear it.

"Michael?" Kitt called his partner's name as he left the building, but wasn't surprised that he didn't get an answer. Again, he called, searching - not running, but not simply walking, either. An emotion built in him, at first faint but then growing. It felt like he shouldn't have eaten, maybe. He felt... worried. Afraid. "Michael?" he called, now more urgently as he broke into a light jog.

Surely he couldn't have left...

Please, don't have left, he silently beseeched, trying to squelch the fear that had grown in him.

He jogged past a corner and caught a glimpse of someone walking - he turned to see and found himself relieved. "Michael, thank heavens. I've been looking for you," he said, catching up and placing his hand, in an echo of the night before, on Michael's shoulder. Somehow, he thought it felt stiff. Tensed. "Michael?"

"Hey," came the answer, subdued and only faintly jovial. It wasn't like Michael at all. He suddenly worried if he should say anything at all, but knew he couldn't keep quiet.

"I was worried. I was afraid you'd left."

\---

He'd heard Kitt calling and had debated on answering. He was still debating when Kitt found him, and had the choice taken from him with just two little statements.

"Nah," he answered. "Not gone yet."

The sound he heard almost made him think of someone being punched in the gut, the air being forced out of their lungs. "Yet?"

"Just taking a walk, really," he said, smoothing it over. "Felt a little restless this morning."

"Oh."

Kitt was only speaking in one-syllable sentences, and somehow Michael felt like he'd kicked him. He couldn't help it, and he knew that it was ridiculous, feeling almost vengeful, but vengeful because of some twinge he didn't even want to acknowledge. "Heard you stayed with Bonnie last night," he mentioned, his tone successfully casual.

"Yes, I... I couldn't sleep."

So he'd gone to Bonnie. And Bonnie had, of course, taken him in because he was Kitt. And nothing had happened - Michael knew that, because he was Kitt. But he still had that twinge. "Ah."

"...Michael?" Kitt reached out and placed his hand on Michael's arm, squeezed his shoulder, and Michael could feel... something. Whatever it was, it warmed what that twinge had chilled. "Was it... wrong?"

First the warmth, now he deflated slightly, tension ebbing from his shoulders, and he turned to look at him. It wasn't the face he'd imagined for Kitt. He'd known all along that Kitt was a computer, but he'd imagined things anyway. He'd imagined him taller, a little paler. Hair a little lighter. And the voice was all wrong. But something in all of it was right. There was a glimmer behind the eyes - eyes he couldn't tell were the wrong colour or the right - that was Kitt. Fully and completely Kitt.

"No," Michael answered him. "It wasn't wrong. Bonnie's... She means a lot to you and I know it." He even gave Kitt a smile. "You like her better."

"No, I don't."

"That's not the point."

They were quiet, watching each other. The worry in Kitt's eyes bothered him. But he shook his head. "No, the point is, Kitt that... Remember I'm here, okay?"

Kitt's worry turned into faint hurt right there in front of him, but then faded. "Michael," he asked, and it took effort for Michael to hear him. "How could I forget?"


	5. Dilemma

"What now?"

Bonnie sat down opposite Michael and Kitt in the lab. There were only hard questions from here out and she knew it. "The problem is that... we don't know. What we do know is... not much, actually."

"That's not an answer."

"I know it's not." She sighed and leaned back against the lumbar-height back on the stool. "We're working on finding real answers. We don't know any names yet, or... just where whomever ended up, but there's one thing I do know. I was going to try to break it gently, but it's not looking like that's possible."

At that, awkwardness settled over the group of three. This time, Devon wasn't involved. He already knew, for one part, and this needed to be brought out quietly for another. Michael could feel the unease in himself, and knew it had to be just as strong in Kitt. He settled his hand on Kitt's shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze before turning back to Bonnie. "All right then," he said, nodding once - for his own sake. "Tell us."

"You know I don't want to. Especially with ... not-so-good news."

The gesture Kitt saw next was familiar. Bonnie stood, raked her hand through her hair, and paced. She turned to face them, her hands on the back of the stool, and looked up at both of them. It was what she'd done time and time again, bracing herself for unpleasant news.

"The human mind," she started, "works differently froma computer. We know that. All of us know that. People put their thoughts into computers all the time - documents, spreadsheets, images... They organise themselves that way. But... it's never gone the other way around. Until now. Humans use ten percent of their brains on average, computers use a hundred percent with nearly a hundred percent efficiency."

"Bonnie--" Michael broke in. "Bonnie, what is it that you're saying?"

She sighed and dropped her head, her hair surrounding her face before she looked up again. "What I'm saying... is... the longer Kitt spends in a human brain, the less likely it is we'll be able to transfer him out, if we're able to at all, without damaging him."

Michael felt like his heart had just dropped into his stomach. "Damaging?"

"Or losing him."

He would've been angry except for the look on her face. She was looking at Kitt - her creation, her pride - with so much pain in her expression that he could only think of a mother losing her child. He couldn't be angry at that.

Michael had only felt like this once before. He had never wanted to feel like this again.

"We're not doing it," he said. His own voice sounded alien. "We're not doing it. We're not... I don't care about any repercussions. Damn it, but we've been through enough hell - this is one I'm not putting any of us through."

"Michael--" Kitt tried to break in, but found himself quickly shushed.

"No, Kitt. No. You aren't going to sacrifice yourself or any other noble thing; you're going to live. And I'll face anybody that says anything else, face to face. Fist to fist if I have to."

He'd lost Stevie. He wasn't going to lose Kitt.

\---

Kitt had to think. He knew Michael wanted to fight, tooth and nail, for him to live. He knew Bonnie wanted the same thing. He really cared for the both of them, too, and wanted to give them that. But a part of him...

There was a strong possibility he'd taken a human life. His personality had taken this mind, and the other... They didn't know where he had gone. The difficulty was in the fact that he had been programmed to never take a human life. Wasn't that the conundrum now? Previously, he could've simply disconnected himself - as he'd nearly done after the second case with Garthe. But now, he (albeit technically) was a human life. There was nothing simple about it.

He had to do something, but his options were severely limited - work and wait. So while Michael was blowing off steam, Kitt was beginning to do deep analysis on the equipment that had been found in his-- in the car's passenger seat. A handheld device that was on par with Knight Industries technology, yet had no obvious business logos. Self-built, Kitt guessed. The parts were bulk parts, even down to the circuitboard which had been cut down to the correct size and self-wired. That meant it would be difficult to trace, except for the fact that it obviously came from somewhere that ordered bulk materials and he could--

...Could go over to the terminal and look up that information.

Kitt folded his arms on the workbench surface and rested his forehead against his arms. His forehead. His arms. The sinking in his stomach made it clear enough - he wanted his wheels, his wireless signals, his MBS, his seats, his windsheild, his... his everything back.

His eyes began to well, but he refused it with all he could. He'd spent too much time crying or near to crying. He was sick of crying. It burned his eyes to push it back, but he did. He didn't want to feel so weak. So vulnerable. Especially after the news Bonnie had given, and Michael's minor explosion. He was caught.

There were so many questions. Was the boy who had this body before dead? If Kitt did somehow transfer out of this human mind, would he be intact? Would the boy be intact? If he did give up his life for the sake of this human, and he wasn't living...

He lifted himself up enough to rest his forehead to the heel of his hand. Why did he have to make this choice at all?

Not for the first time, he felt a hand on his shoulder when he hadn't really known anyone was there.

"Kitt?"

"Yes, Michael."

"You know, you don't have to work right now."

"I know."

"You probably shouldn't be working right now."

That got Kitt to turn his head, to look toward his partner. "Why?"

"Kitt," said Michael, serious, "you aren't looking so good. And before you get offended, let me explain."

\---

Michael had seen him when he'd walked in. The posture didn't surprise him so much. He was used to seeing people huddled over electronics components, looking like they'd just been dealt a crushing blow. It wasn't so simple this time. This time, it was the body he was, in a way, starting to get used to thinking of as Kitt. He'd had his temper tantrum, but Kitt...

Kitt was always reserved. He never let his emotions get the better of him, and Michael knew that Kitt had emotions, no matter how hard Kitt denied it - especially now.

"You look like you're exhausted, for one," he said. "You're getting dark circles under your eyes. And you look upset, too. You... look like you need some soup and a nap."

"I have to figure this out, though. I have to find a way to get myself back into my CPU so the personality that's supposed to have this body can have it back." Kitt was adamant. Michael felt his stomach sink somehow, like the twinge he'd gotten before, talking to Bonnie.

So far, about thirty-six hours had passed. Not much more than that, and he felt like he'd been on a rollercoaster ride to rival the last few years. And Kitt... He couldn't say Kitt was unaffected, but the fact was that Kitt was being Kitt. Which meant he was being distant, focusing on the task at hand, and trying to sacrifice himself for the good of a person who he'd not even known and had tried to attack him.

"You have," Michael said, both hands on Kitt's shoulders, "to have your EEG tomorrow, and we have to check the missing persons reports, and that's all. You heard what Bonnie said."

"I can't kill people, Michael."

"You didn't kill anyone, Kitt - you saved yourself. There's a big difference."

"Karr was programmed to save himself, Michael, and look what happened to him!" His tone was sharp - so very him and so very pained.

Michael sighed. "Kitt, you're nothing like Karr. You've never actively tried to kill, or even threatened anyone. You didn't know what you were doing when you managed to take this body over. You were just trying to live."

"And cost someone their life?"

"Someone who was trying to cost you yours?" He wrapped his arms around Kitt and pulled him to sit up, even to lean against him. "C'mon, Kitt... You need rest. I'll lay with you."

The process, as Michael felt it, took a few moments. First, he saw indecision. Kitt stayed stiff and a little resentful. But then, it was like a knot slowly untying. Kitt let himself slump forward, his shoulders finally loosening the tension they'd held. Michael tightened his hug, making it into a subtle cue that was somehow picked up; Kitt let himself rest backward, vaguely surprised it felt so comforting to lean.

Michael had to smile. "That's it," he murmured. "You can stay with me."


	6. Tests

It was the best morning Michael had had in a long damn time.

He didn't even bother opening his eyes while awakening slowly happened around him. First, he realised he felt rested. He was warm from head to toe, encompassed in softness from pillows and mattress to the sheets and comforter against his skin. He felt relaxed, as if he didn't have a single worry in the world. The weight of the cover was the only weight he felt. But then it crept into his awareness that he wasn't alone. Yet it didn't worry him in the least. The warm body beside him in his bed was his best friend. His partner. He smiled, eyes still closed, as he reached over and laid his arm over Kitt's still-sleeping body.

Kitt had a body now. He'd had one before, but this time... This time, Kitt had a body Michael could hug. He wasn't in a black box with a tiny TV and a couple speakers. He wasn't in a black car that, while absolutely fantastic, could not, in any circumstance, be hugged. Now, though...

Michael smiled. When was the last time he'd felt this good? He loved this. He was happy like this. He still had Kitt, and Kitt...

Kitt was stirring, rolling over and into the pool of warmth that Michael had created and making it all the warmer. Michael's smile warmed as well. Consciousness seemed to leave him for a few moments as he soaked in the morning sunlight, the softness, the warmth. When he came back to, he had his nose, his lips, pressed into dark, slightly curled hair, his arms around warm, smooth  
skin - what was this like? It felt so familiar. It felt like he'd laid like this before. With sunlight streaming and a soft bed all around him, and a warm body in his arms - someone who felt like home...

It came in a flash as bright as the sunlight. Oh God, it was Stevie. It was Stevie he remembered, before they were engaged. Right before. In that apartment she had, where the bedroom was full of light and air, like summer mornings every day. And now he was at that same place with Kitt. That... same place in his heart.

That couldn't be right.

Some of that soft, sweet warmth had faded. What was he thinking? How could he feel that way now? Wasn't fair to either of them.

Michael sighed and eased himself to sit up, barely wincing before heading toward the en suite. He needed a shower. He had an already-confused brain to straighten out.

\---

Kitt was stirring when Michael came back in. He was turning over with quiet whimpers, reaching for and clutching a pillow. In moments, he stilled.

Michael sighed. Kitt didn't sleep well alone. Bonnie had found it out first, but now...

Now days had passed. Today was the day. The CAT scans. The MRIs. All of those had come out normal. There was still the enhanced CAT to run, but today was the real day. Today, they would be running an EEG. A deep-scan EEG that would leave Kitt in a darkened room, alone with a technician, for thirty minutes at the least, but at most...

At most, hours.

They might ask him to sleep. He'd end up with glue on his head, for certain. Michael had been through EEGs. They'd become normal after Dr. Alpert had realised just how many times Michael got hit on the head on the job - especially after the plate in his forehead from 'Nam. And while Kitt was used to being examined through the computer systems on the semi or in the lab here, this wasn't the same.

After all, Kitt didn't sleep well alone.

He was starting to stir again, even while Michael thought about it, and he felt the silk strands around his heart tighten again. Even though he was damp from the shower and had gotten to the T-shirt-and-boxers stage of being dressed, he climbed into bed. It was almost immediate - Kitt turned over, squirmed, and then was conformed against his side from shoulder to ankle. Felt strange. Even stranger that it felt right.

That shower didn't do any good at all.

\---

"Are you ready?" he asked, leaning against the wall. Kitt was pulling on his shoes. Michael had had to teach him to tie shoes, but Kitt was, as he always was, a fast learner. He'd gotten dressed in clothing he considered comfortable. The fact that it included dress pants and a buttondown shirt made Michael think twice. That was comfort?

"As ready as I will be." He stood, his shoes tied, and looked up at Michael. "I don't want to do this."

"I know."

"But I know I need to do this."

"It'll help us find out if... if he's in there, too." Michael exhaled. "We need to know that."

"I know." Kitt rubbed his hands over his face. The sheer humanity of the gesture made Michael pause. "I just... really don't want to do this. Who knows what an AI does to a human brain..."

"From what we've seen so far? Nothing bad. You're still you. You're still my best friend." Michael smiled. Best friend. Yeah, that was right. Best friend - almost only friend. It felt so good to have Kitt depending on him again, being there with him like he had been, day after day, for years. Why he'd been so ... so jealous of Bonnie, he had no idea, except for that little thread that demanded that Kitt was his.

"There's every likelihood that I'm not using the right hemispheres or right sections of the brain for what they're supposed to be for. I could be damaging this body just by living these few days in it, and if the owner of this body is still in residence, then how could I-- I shouldn't even be in this body, I can't--"

"Kitt." Michael stopped him with his hands on Kitt's shoulders. "Kitt. Shh, Kitt." It hurt to hear Kitt talking about himself like that. All of those disparagements... He shook his head. "You didn't do it intentionally. You know that. Don't say you shouldn't or can't - you're in this body now."

"But if he's dead--"

"If he's dead, he's dead, Kitt. There's nothing any of us can do about it, and... he was trying to steal you. I'm glad you survived."

Kitt finally managed to look up and he knew the expression on Michael's face meant sincerity. He couldn't help but smile and admit, "So am I."

\---

By the time they reached the hospital, Michael knew Kitt wasn't so sure. For one thing, Kitt knew Michael was never fond of hospitals, and though this was the part of the hospital that didn't have beds every door, it was still hospital enough for him. But this time, the hospital was for him - for Kitt - not for Michael. So add Michael's already uncertain vibes to Kitt's worry, and that explained how Kitt was rambling while they walked down toward the EKG department with Dr. Alpert's order in hand. Michael had already checked Kitt in as a FLAG employee, so they didn't ask too many questions. Now they just had to get there and report in, which was a challenge, Michael realised. Kitt had hold of his arm, his fingers pressing in hard. He was going to have bruises.  
"Hey, look," he brought up, "do you think it'd be okay if I sat with him? I know the drill, I won't pat him or anything, but... hold his hand?"

"Oh, that's fine," agreed the technician - she was a respiratory therapist, qualified to take care of any problems the test might cause. "You can hold his hand."

Then, once Kitt was seated, the questions started - when was the last time he'd eaten, was he on any medications, had he had any caffeine, had he had any head injuries, had he washed his hair before coming (that answer had been obvious, with Kitt's hair still damp). That was when Michael learned just how long the test for Kitt was going to be. Dr. Alpert wanted him to sleep for this test when usually it lasted all of a half-hour. Michael settled himself in while the girl started placing electrodes. There were two to put on his chest to monitor his heart, and twenty-eight to dot on his head. Michael had been through that before, dot by dot, though they couldn't use all twenty-eight on him. The plate messed with that.

She put a warm washcloth over Kitt's eyes after the first exercise, and then Kitt settled in to sleep, clutching Michael's hand. Michael, in his office chair, had his feet propped on the footrest of Kitt's recliner. He settled in to sleep as well. May as well. Since Kitt didn't sleep well alone.

\---

"My head feels awful."

"Headache, or glue?"

"Glue," Kitt muttered, lightly touching one of the lumps still on his scalp. "This is possibly the most offensive substance I've actually felt."

Michael chuckled. "You've not felt anything yet." He fastened his seatbelt. "There are more offensive substances out there. I promise."

"Remind me not to encounter them."

Michael was relaxed on the way back to the Foundation. They had a sheaf of paper that contained Kitt's EEG for Dr. Alpert to look over, and he didn't think they'd gotten any weird looks on the way out - Michael concluded that that meant Kitt was normal - the only mind in that skull. It relieved him. Not only was Kitt normal, but he was alone in that head. And that head was on a body that he...

That he could wake up beside, and feel too good with.

He thought he should worry more about it. It left him feeling strange anyway. He was feeling that good from sleeping, just sleeping, with another guy.

Michael looked over at Kitt as they stopped at the light leading out of the hospital. Kitt was rubbing at his eyes with the envelope full of EEG on his lap, looking a little stressed, a little lost, and a lot tired. He reached over to squeeze his partner's shoulder. "Want a nap to round that one out when we get back?"

The red light passed in quiet. It was only before Michael was about to pull out for the green that Kitt answered, "Yes, I think I do."

"You got a deal," he answered, and gave Kitt's hand a squeeze. This car, unlike the one he'd had for nearly a decade, wouldn't drive itself.


	7. Confusion/Hope

"Well, Mister Knight," began the doctor as he paged through the EEG, "we have some interesting results here."

Two sets of eyes lifted from the sheaf of paper to the doctor who had read them. Once. And then again. He had shaken his head each time, reading not only his first-run notes but the notes from the respiratory technician who had originally run the test. "What?" both of them asked, before both looked slightly embarrassedly at each other. Kitt cleared his throat. "What do you mean, doctor?"

He was nervous. The MRI had shown nothing odd. Even the CAT scans hadn't, but this was a display of brain activity. The brain activity was what was most worrisome. They had reason to fear his brain being either hyper- or hypoactive. Kitt hadn't even glanced at the reading. He knew what was normal, and he didn't want to be his own bearer of bad news. He'd seen Michael's EEGs, and he knew that while they were missing certain lines, that they had always been normal enough. The doctor's advice had grown repetitive, though. There were only so many times people could hear, "Get another job!" before they grew resentful.

"There isn't anything overtly wrong with these scans."

"Oh thank heavens--"

"But." The interruption wasn't pleasant or appreciated.

"But?"

"But you're showing high activity on electrodes where we expect only low activity - where the electric amplitudes aren't so easy to detect. I would doubt electrode placement, but I know the technician who ran your scan. She wouldn't have made such an error."

"What do you mean," Michael began, after a tight swallow, "high activity? It's nothing like... multiple personalities or anything, is it?" He'd taken the words out of Kitt's mouth, if Kitt had been able to speak at all.

"Oh no, nothing like that - that doesn't show up on EEGs. That's a psychological disorder, not neurological. This means that he has a more active brain than most, and we may want to do regular EEGs to monitor the activity, but-" The doctor paused and set his pen aside. "Doctor Alpert told me to look for signs of what he called a 'double inhabitance'. This hasn't been medically documented before, so I'm afraid I have no precedent. But what I thought to expect in such a case - doubled or tripled activity during stimulation, abnormally high spikes and long spindles, many artifacts that could have been exaggerated - are missing in most cases. Your high brain activity may simply be normal for you."

"May," Kitt repeated, unconvinced. "Just... may?"

"Yes, may. That's why I recommend regular EEGs."

They were sitting in the car, still parked outside the doctor's office, not long after. Neither of them had spoken after they'd given the required and rather insincere thanks to the doctor. Michael had started to turn the ignition, but hadn't. Instead, he'd waited. Waited for Kitt to say something. Waited for Ed McMahon to appear and tell him he'd won the Publisher's Clearinghouse sweepstakes. Waited for Alan Funt to appear out of nowhere and declare that this was Candid Camera. Or maybe it would be Ralph Edwards telling him that This Was His Life. Maybe he was waiting for Stevie to elbow him in the ribs while turning over, waking him up for him to find that these last years had just been a dream. Or maybe he was waiting for a pink octopus monster to drop from outer space onto the car hood and eat his left shoe followed by a motor oil chaser.

Finally, instead of wondering, Michael broke the silence. "So," he began quietly, "what were we just told?" He didn't stop looking forward, out the windshield. That octopus monster would appear any moment now.

"We were just told a very educated nothing," Kitt answered. Michael looked over. His hands were holding the sheaf of EEG readout. They looked dark against the white envelope. Kitt looked lonely sitting over there.

"Educated nothing."

"We've gone to the doctor and he's told us that there's something wrong with me, but he doesn't know what."

"At least he doesn't want to do exploratory brain surgery?"

"Don't give him the idea."

The bitterness in Kitt's voice, so familiar a tone even without the accent, made Michael smile despite himself. He reached over to place his hand over Kitt's, and then went a step further. He hugged him, sideways, there in the car. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a small smile on Kitt's face, along with a hand coming to rest on his arm. "Tell you what," he said, careful as he was close to Kitt's ear. "Let's go get some food. Drive-through burgers, fries, and shakes or a whole pie from that bakery we found on the way here, or we can raid the grocery store and I'll cook. You pick."

He didn't get an answer for a few seconds. He did, however, feel Kitt's hand tighten on his arm, and Kitt's head slowly ease over to rest against his. "Thank you, Michael," he heard, quiet in the silence of the car. Michael just smiled.

"You're welcome."

\---

The next day, Kitt was in front of a monitor. Bonnie was still analysing the equipment the previous owner of Kitt's body had left behind in his departure, and Kitt was trying to match his face to recent missing persons reports. The fact that they'd not had any matches yet could have meant a few things: first, that no one had reported him; second, that no one had noticed him missing; third, that he wasn't local; or fourth, that he'd been working for someone else and that someone had told him they would disavow all knowledge of him if he came up missing. Given his line of work, Kitt knew that any of them were just as likely as the others.

First, he began to expand the search. Instead of just police reports, he began searching college security organisations and dean reports, news reports of young men who had made strides in technology (as this young man had to have at least one award of some sort, given his seeming prowess) - anything that he could think of that was remotely related. The sooner they got an identification, the sooner Kitt would know what to do, what to think, of what had happened to him. If the intent was malicious, they needed to know. But if the intent wasn't malicious...

That was where he hit the snag.

"Any luck?" asked Bonnie from her own workbench, and Kitt shook his head.

"No, not yet. It seems my... host, here, is unknown by most organisations. I've not found a single report of a young man matching this description--"

"Your description."

"--...Yes, I suppose. But I've not found mention as yet, and I doubt I will until a professor or colleague reports him as missing."

"Why not a friend?"

"If he had a friend, don't you believe he would've been reported by now?"

Bonnie chuckled without wanting to. "You've got a point. Sad existence, but it's still a point."

"I wonder what kind of person can exist that nobody cares enough to notice they're missing," he murmured as he paged through the results that looked nothing like him.

"Well." Slowly, Bonnie stretched, making sure she could feel every muscle of her back expand. "Some people just aren't as social as you are. And we've known of a few people who wouldn't be reported missing."

"Such as?"

"Garthe. Adrienne."

"Elizabeth and Garthe, respectively, would've reported them missing."

"With the possible exception of the latter," Bonnie corrected, "as Garthe might have eventually killed Adrienne just because he could."

"This time, I'll concede the point to you," he answered in a murmur. Both of them were amused without meaning to be. It became something of a challenge, as they went back to work, to name people who wouldn't be reported missing. Bonnie, at one point, nearly mentioned April. Kitt nearly mentioned Karr. They were able to work together comfortably, though, for Kitt, unproductively. They'd been doing searches all along, but only now was he appreciating how difficult it was. He'd thought, perhaps foolishly, that all they'd really needed was to put him on the search. Now, he was learning differently.

Kitt was close to resting his head on the desk when he heard Bonnie making a surprised sound. "Hm?" He asked it without really looking up. Which was perfectly fine, he discovered, as Bonnie was soon holding the opened handheld before his eyes.

"Look. Look at the memory in this thing. I've only seen this kind of memory once, but I have seen it. It's ultracompact solid memory - a lot like what we use for you."

"But it looks smaller." Kitt took the handheld from her, turning it to one side and another to see the thickness of the mounted memory on the circuit board. "Surely it doesn't have as much memory as I do."

"Of course not, but it's still a significant amount. Enough that we may have found one of the links in the puzzle."

Kitt looked up at her, slightly confused. "Just what do you mean, Bonnie?"

She looked directly at him, a hand on each of his cheeks. "We might have just found where your 'host' went."


	8. Discovery

Bonnie had spent long hours sitting in front of her lit magnifier. Her eyes felt strained, her back ached, her head was pounding, but it was a beginning. She was building, inch by inch, a circuit map of the memory that wildly-built handheld had on board. Once the circuit map was finished, she could start building the sensor harness that would let them know if they actually had somebody in there, or if it was just another false lead.

At this point, she didn't know which one to hope for.

A lot of time had passed. It was creeping up on two weeks now, becaue they'd searched every inch of the car, every single missing persons database, and it had taken her (for all she was ashamed to admit it) a while to realise just how much memory was in that little handheld.

But that was two weeks. That meant fourteen days for Kitt's mental processes to expand and filter out and take hold inside a human brain. It was going to be next to impossible, if it wasn't impossible already, to pull him out of that human brain without any damage - even if they found a way to do it at all. And the fact was that it was every inch unlikely.

And that wouldn't be a good thing for Kitt to hear.

Shaking her head, Bonnie sighed. She'd probably have to be the one to tell him, too. But for now... After closing her eyes tightly, she looked up toward the clock. Fifteen minutes 'til four AM. "Past my bedtime," she muttered. "By about thirty-six hours." She pushed herself to stand up, and groaned as she did. She felt sore all the way down, from her shoulders to her hips to her knees.

Someday, she was going to be the old arthritic lady down the street, she knew, but she wasn't quite there yet. She still had her bruises and broken bones to take from the garage floor.

One by one, she turned the lab lights off. The one over her work, then the three switches that turned off the overheads. It left one window lit, and through the one-way glass, she could see the shining black car on the other side. It wasn't going to be the same, she thought. She wasn't going to see that red scanner swishing side to side, the sound communicating so much. Just a whisper, but one that could mean frustration, amusement, content... She'd learned to translate that sound when Kitt was brand new.

It took another sigh, but she turned off the lights over the car and turned from the lab, the door automatically closing and locking behind her. Just as well - her hands were pressed against the small of her back and her eyes were closed. She knew these hallways. "I'm sleeping for at least twelve hours," she grumbled to herself. "Probably sixteen."

Her steps were the only sound as she climbed the stairs to the main level. Exhaustion had left the building some time ago. She was running on fumes.

\---

Kitt sat in the kitchen there on the Foundation grounds. He'd learned something these past two weeks. He liked the scent of coffee, but the taste repulsed him. That was why he sat with a mug under his nose, happily steaming, untouched. He was, however, considering a few things in regards to coffee. Mostly, if it smelled as good with something else added to it. Something like chocolate or vanilla. He doubted strawberry, simply because it would be too different of a scent - too sweet and tangy compared to the darkness of the coffee. Both chocolate and vanilla could taste dark.

That was something else he learned - the strange ability for something to taste or smell as an adjective that wouldn't usually apply. And the way things actually tasted and smelled! Flowers were amazing, and the wonderful breezes that snaked through the grounds... He could very lightly smell the salt on them, for all the beach was still miles away. Bricks felt so warm against his back when he leaned against them at the end of the day, and the grass and dirt felt cool and soft beneath his feet when he walked beneath the trees. When he closed his eyes and tilted his head up, he could still see the flickering of the light filtering down between leaves and sun. There were so many parts of being human that he'd never known about, but now he was learning through experience. It was... amazing. He would call it sensory overload, but somehow he could handle every moment coming at him in all its wonder.

And yet, he still felt on edge. There was so much that was so very good, but he had seen the bad on his own. Knives, guns, bombs, people with no consciences but all the means anyone could want. He was afraid for himself and for Michael. Like this, he couldn't complete his purpose. He couldn't protect Michael. And he's broken one of the tenets that was so very vital to his life. Twice, it had happened before. Once, it had been his brother. The other, a madman. Now, it was more difficult to cope with. Though this person, whomever he was, had succeeded in disabling him, there was no evidence that he was actually trying to destroy him. Only that he'd been studying.

Circumstance had just turned the situation to the ill. He didn't know what he was going to do, but he was sure it would involve more tests than he'd already been through. But he didn't know what it would mean. What they would find. Or if they'd find a single possibility. He was beginning to doubt it.

"Mornin'," he heard, and looked over his shoulder. He knew the voice before he even looked.

"Good morning, Michael," he greeted softly.

"Good thing you can't get in trouble for huffing coffee." The chuckle was comfortable to Kitt's ears. He wasn't as fond of Michael mussing his hair, but he saw it as an expression of affection. That was all that kept him from giving Michael something of a glare. "I'd have to turn you in."

Michael was more dressed than he was, Kitt observed. And showered, judging by his hair. Kitt had yet to change out of sweatpants and T-shirt, his houseshoes keeping his toes warm. Suddenly, he felt underdressed. "Mm." It wasn't much of an answer, but Kitt had used up his awake status on thinking and saying one coherent phrase.

"Want some breakfast?"

"Mm."

"Scrambled eggs? Pancakes? Pop-tarts?"

"Mm."

"...I'm not making scrambled-egg pancakes with pop-tart bits."

Kitt shook his head to wake himself up a little further. "Sorry," he murmured. "I... don't really care which one. I'm too asleep to taste anything."

"Thus smelling coffee?"

"Mmhm."

Kitt went back into his trance while Michael chuckled, pulling out a skillet. He'd make pancakes. It looked like Kitt was about to take a miniature nap.

"So tell me," said Michael, "what is it that kept you up so late last night? You were only in bed for about four hours."

"Hm? Oh. I... had a little talk with Bonnie."

"'Bout what?" he asked, reaching for the flour. Kitt found it odd. He heard... something... in Michael's voice that he couldn't explain. Dread? Hurt? Something.

"About the handheld," he said, choosing the lesser of the subjects. It took so much effort to even think straight that he didn't want to go into the more complex. "She's not completed work on it yet, so we don't really have any conclusions."

The relief was audible in Michael's voice, even to Kitt's sleep-addled mind. "Talking shop, huh? I'm glad the two of you understand that stuff."

"It's what we do," he murmured. "It's what I am."

The silence that followed that was almost uncomfortable, but conversation somehow turned to less serious matters as Michael cooked their breakfast. The more he ate, the more he woke up, and was eventually able to take himself up to the shower. It looked like he'd have a day to waste. Bonnie had started work on the circuitry of the handheld - that much wasn't a lie - and he didn't want to disturb her plans. It was hard to keep an eye on things like that when he wasn't there in the lab with his sensors showing him every little thing.

Instead, he had slept. And he'd felt ridiculous. He'd started disliking sleep. Not only was it completely nonproductive, but it frightened him when Michael wasn't close. And it was always Michael. Bonnie was awake nights, more often than not, and two people couldn't work on the work that had to be done. When he was there, after the search for updated missing persons reports every twelve hours, he was... extraneous. He'd never liked being extraneous. And Michael had actually wanted him close. It was... actually rather nice to feel Michael's arm over him when the world started to go dark.

He'd have to experiment later, though, and try to sleep on his own. He couldn't stay dependant on Michael forever like this. It wouldn't be fair. After all, Michael had come so close, more than once, to leaving the Foundation, that Kitt wondered if he didn't see this as an opportunity.

He'd have to tell Michael the rest of what he'd spoken to Bonnie about late last night. That would probably decide him. And it meant so many other things beyond just a change in employment status. Too many things.

The lab was empty when he went in, except for his old shell. It was a sight that made odd things happen to him physiologically. Kitt had never had to deal with those sensations before. His heart in his throat, or his stomach feeling as if it had fallen, his blood going hot while his skin went cold, burning behind his eyes... But he'd learned to clear it all with a few moments of closing his eyes and shaking his head. Michael was probably talking to Devon right now. He made himself think about that as he blindly went toward the terminal he temporarily claimed each morning to run his search. Missing persons from California, Nevada, and Arizona as according to police reports, college security reports, any organisation that offered photos. He had a few pending, waiting for the images to appear from their respective organisations, and there were a few new.

No, he thought as he scrolled through them one by one. This body wasn't female. Hair wasn't blonde. Wasn't six feet tall. No glasses. But then he saw. One of his pending searches looked back at him from the terminal, and it was the face he kept seeing in the mirror.

"Oh my," he whispered, having to break himself out of staring to print the report. He had a name to put to his face.

\---

"Jeremy Matthews," read Michael, looking down the report. When he'd first seen it, it had felt like the floor had fallen from under him. Not knowing had felt a little bit like a safety net. He was going to be allowed to pretend nothing was wrong as long as they didn't have a name. As long as nobody knew, then the only person to worry about was Kitt. Now, according to what he was reading, there wasn't only a college student, but... "His sister reported him missing."

Kitt nodded. "That's right. I'd been waiting for a recent photo. They'd posted it without a photo until today."

"We'll have to contact her." Devon spoke from behind his desk, his fingers steepled in front of his lips. "She deserves to know what happened?"

"And what're we gonna tell her, Devon?" Michael asked, looking up from the sheet of paper, giving it a light toss onto the heavy desk. He flopped down to sit on the nearby chair arm. "Sorry, but your brother was stealing our talking car and ended up struck by lightning? We don't know where he is, this isn't him, this is really our AI?"

"Not quite as bluntly, Michael, but you do have a point." He sighed heavily and shoved himself to stand, turning to look out the window. "This is a difficult situation to explain. We can't explain it without explaining Kitt, and it's certainly an opportunity for quite a bit of resentment. We can't explain what happened to our Mister Matthews until we know just where he went. And now, with people looking for him-"

"-People will recognize his face. That means that we can't take Kitt off Foundation grounds." Michael sighed. "And that means, if this ends up irreversible, he gets to go through what I did."

With brows knit, Devon turned from the window. "...I beg your pardon?"

"I wasn't born with this face, Devon."

"Yes." The tone was soft. "I know."

"And that's what I have to look forward to? Weeks of ... rehabilitation?" Kitt looked up at the both of them, feeling helpless. "Seeing yet another new form in the mirror?"

The smile on Devon's face was meant to be reassuring. "Only if this is irreversible, Kitt."

"Devon." Kitt shook his head. "It's already been two weeks. It's already on the edge of irreversible, and will only get moreso. Mister Matthews may be, as far as we know, dead. Even if he does exist, he's in a computer no larger than a Polaroid camera. The fact is... If he is, we can probably retrieve him, and find a way to give him this body back."

He glanced at Michael, and regretted it almost immediately. He couldn't keep Michael's gaze. "If we give him his body back, Kitt... what happens to you?"

"I... follow my programming."

"What does that mean?"

"I protect human life."

Michael shook his head. Past the lump in his throat, he managed one word before clutching Kitt in a tight hug. "No."


	9. Rift

Kitt sat awkwardly by himself, his eyes closed as he listened to the vague sounds of Michael and Devon arguing. The sound was audible through the door, but wasn't intelligible. Each voice had its characteristics that set it apart. Devon was quiet, precise, and made his point with words more than with volume. Michael's was louder, more blunt in its tone, and held everything that Kitt feared. He could hear far too much in that tone alone. He heard anger, fear, determination, love, desperation... But what left him wishing he could bring himself to go farther from the door was something he heard that he only barely could put a name to. He didn't want to name it, because he feared what that would mean if he interpreted it correctly. So he told himself he couldn't possibly be hearing despair in Michael's voice.

It wasn't until he heard a hand on the doorknob that Kitt felt himself tense. A moment longer and he flung himself to his feet and darted into the nearest doorway and, like a child, he hid. It wasn't much of a hiding place - who hadn't hidden behind a sofa at some point? - but it was enough to keep him from immediate vision.

From his place between the wall and the sofa, Kitt heard the door to Devon's office open and close perfunctorily. The footsteps that led past the doorway let him know that he hadn't had to hide after all. For all it was a relief, he didn't move from where he laid. Instead, he closed his eyes.

There weren't any lights on in the room. The light from the sunset seeped in through the small part in the curtains. The wood gleamed. He remembered vividly the reflection of the shadows beneath the door as Michael's shoes had passed the room by. Closing his eyes didn't take much away from that experience. He could smell dust and wood polish, books rarely opened and cushions rarely sat on. His elbows ached dully against the hard floor, and he rearranged himself just enough that that wasn't a distraction anymore.

There, that way, alone and silent, Kitt could think.

Too much to think about, but he could think.

His thoughts went in circles, though. Ran loops around his memories. From Michael hugging him so tight it hurt (in such a too-good way), to him feeling like he was going to cry, to the blur that came from Devon clearing his throat and him pulling away and all of the words that followed. How he had to. He had to give himself up to save this Jeremy Matthews if it could be done. It was what he did, it was what he was for - he was there to protect human life, and while he'd taken a life before, it was the life of someone who had been a danger to himself and others, had endangered nations and promised to do it again, who had hurt him, hurt Michael, hurt April and Devon and innumerable other people, had maddened himself beyond all reason and had practically taken his own life by failing to see through Michael's trap and had ended up sinking into the ocean in a monster of his own making.

But this, Kitt had learned, was no monster. This was just a boy who had too much knowledge and not enough wisdom. This was a college student who had found something too tempting for any scientist's mind to leave alone. It was the reason they'd kept him secret for so long, Kitt had told them. The possibility that something like this could happen, but it happened. So now they had to do what they had to do, and that meant that if Kitt could see to it that Jeremy Matthews would live, then he would live.

And then there was the worst. The look on Michael's face.

The anger and the fracture he'd seen in a single split second that had made him leave the room before he followed suit. He knew Michael hadn't cried, because that was something Michael had only done twice the whole time he'd known him, and each time was after he'd lost Stevie; once in thought, once in life.

He'd heard Michael ask Devon if there was something he could do, some way to change that, but Devon had said what Kitt knew. It wasn't possible. It was integral. It was part of what made him who and what he was.

After that, he couldn't listen to more than tones anymore. All he could hear was Michael's voice, sounding utterly betrayed.

And it was his fault.

It was a failing of humanity. One he didn't have as a computer or a car, however he wanted to categorise himself. He had the ability, then, to remain calm no matter what feedback his circuits offered. He could simply push the impulses into background processes and ignore them until they had faded. It was a process he'd gotten quite good at, and he used it to his advantage. It kept him on an even keel for their work, as touchy as it could be. Humanity, however... Humans seemed driven by emotion, and this wasn't a revelation to him. He'd often observed it in Michael. Less often in Bonnie or Devon. More often in April. And now, through this complete fluke, he himself was among their number. Instead of having the comforting ritual of background processes, he found himself hammered by emotions full-force. He couldn't push them away and he couldn't simply shunt them aside. Behind the sofa, Kitt fought the emotional downswing his memory wanted him to have.

He lost.

\---

When he managed to open his eyes once more, the room was nearly pitch dark. Only the faintest moonlight came through the curtains. It wasn't enough to give him so much to work with when he decided it was time that he moved from behind the sofa. His body ached from the sleep it had taken, without his permission, there on the hardwood floor. Inch by inch, Kitt worked his way from beneath the sofa, pressing himself against the wall to make certain he had enough room to get out. The room was a blur to barely awakened eyes, and the window was like a beacon. He shuffled toward it with his arms raised over his head in a stretch, both shoulders popping and a sound of quiet pain escaping along with his yawn. The heels of his hands pressed against the windowsill as he pushed his back into stretching as well, his forehead resting against the night-cooled glass.

It was only after he exhaled a heavy and, so he thought, well-deserved sigh that he felt another presence. He didn't look around, because there was only one person it could have been.

"That can't be the most comfortable bed in the world."

"It wasn't."

"Know how long you were down there?"

"No."

"'Bout six hours."

"Mm."

"Know how scared you made us?"

"No."

Silence. Kitt slowly lifted the window, letting the cold air in, and breathing it in deep. It felt good in his lungs, and the moonlight - brighter with the curtains pushed open - made even the light seem silver. That, he could smile at.

Then, quietly, Michael asked, "What happened to not being able to sleep alone?"

"...What?" He turned, confused, not certain what he'd just heard.

"You couldn't sleep alone before. You... I dunno. You always had to sleep with me or Bonnie or in the car. How..." Michael trailed off. "Is it... being in the closer space or something?"

Kitt looked at him, bewildered. "I... I really don't know. I just... exhausted myself."

"How?"

Could he tell him the truth? Would Michael want to hear the truth? Of course Michael would think he wanted to hear the truth, but would he really want to hear it? More importantly, would he accept anything else? Kitt sighed. "Crying," he answered at last, looking away.

It was Michael's turn to be silent for a few moments, his response a little lost in the quiet. "Yeah."

"I'm sorry," Kitt offered, but Michael shook his head. Both of them were able to look at the other for just a moment.

"Don't."

"Why?"

"Because," said Michael, and Kitt could hear the unease in his voice, "you're doing what you have to. And I don't like it. And I don't want it. And I almost hate Devon and Bonnie for making you like that, even though I understand why, because--" His breath caught in his throat. "Because they've managed to take somebody else away from me. And I've already lost a partner and a wife and my family, and now they're managing to take you, too."

"Michael," Kitt whispered, his own throat tight, shaking his head - "They aren't. I am."

"Let me blame them. Please."

But Kitt shook his head more determinedly even as he crossed the room to wrap his arms tight around Michael's shoulders. "I can't."

Michael had whispered that he knew, and they had been silent for a time that neither of them measured. When they finally went to bed and slept, Kitt was both sad and grateful. Michael understood. But Kitt's heart still felt like it was shattering every time he looked at Michael, seeing that resignation settled over his shoulders like the weight of the world.

It was then, even as he was lingering beside sleep, that Kitt understood that his lot, for all it included death, would be easier than Michael's. He would die, and he wouldn't know anything further. But Michael had to keep living and had to build yet another life to keep his feet on steady ground. It wasn't fair.

In a subversive corner of his mind, his heart, and his soul, he began to hope that Jeremy Matthews was well and truly gone. It frightened him that he could even want that sort of thing, but it was yet another human emotion he'd never known until now. He was faced with the ultimate loss, and while most of what he felt was predictable - sadness, depression, and even heartbreak - he never could have guessed he'd feel greed over something he'd never even wanted.

He had this body now. He lived. He could touch and be touched, he could hug and be hugged, and now he knew what it was to sleep in a bed with someone warm beside him, with softness all around him, and he knew what it was to wake up to a familiar smile. He was greedy to keep it, and it was the most difficult rift within himself that he had ever felt.


	10. Selfish

He hated what he was watching. It was too damn familiar - he'd been through it too goddamned many times and he'd hoped, after that last time, it'd really be the last time. Every time he'd seen Kitt in that damned bay, getting systems worked on, getting himself repaired after yet another asshole thought that Kitt was just an 'it', just a thing that they could destroy to get to him, it had felt just like this. Like he was one step away from losing everything he had.

And God but now it felt weird on top of that. Because Kitt wasn't the one being worked on. There was that shining black car, and there was that damned handheld, and the mainframes were up and humming and he could hear keys being pressed, commands typed out faster than he thought he could think. Bonnie and Kitt were in there, but that car wasn't his partner. His partner was the boy sitting at a terminal, typing just as quickly as Bonnie, if not faster. The brown-haired boy with the light tan who clung to him and cried on him and made him feel like he was the most vital person on the planet, and that he was actually honestly and completely loved for no reason other than the fact that he was alive.

The thought of losing that, of losing him, now, after so much, ate him up like acid. All he could do was stare through the windows, watching. Watching everything go away. And not even because any of them wanted it to go away, but because... it had to.

He hated that programming.

He loved Kitt.

And that was too goddamned weird to think about.

\---

"Hey."

"Mm- Oh. Hello."

Michael hid his wince. It sounded almost (almost) like a footnote - or it did until he looked at Kitt and saw the dark circles under his eyes and how drawn his face seemed to be and realised that while he'd been sitting, staring, and moping, Kitt had... basically been working toward his own suicide.

The realisation struck through Michael's heart and he caught himself reaching out before he made himself stop and just placed a hand on the tabletop instead. "Come siddown?"

"Just a second," Kitt said. He was looking the soda machine over, his money already deposited, and finally made the choice. Plain old Pepsi dispensed with the usual low chunk, and then Kitt was sitting next to him. It was second nature to place an arm across Kitt's shoulders.

"How you doing?" he asked, looking Kitt over while he tried to measure it for himself. Kitt looked tired. Like he'd run a marathon after having a week-long stomach flu. He squeezed his arm around Kitt's shoulders.

Kitt sighed. "I've been better."

Michael smiled. "Seriously."

"Seriously..." He slumped, and his head rested back against Michael's arm. Kitt was warm. "I believe the saying is 'put through a wringer.' With what we're looking at, we don't really know what we're looking at. It's code, it has to be code, but it's so unlike mine that I can't tell if it's a simple, mindless program or if I'm nosing my way through Mister Matthews' brain. Every moment I work on it is a moment wasted, but we can't do anything to help it in the least because inserting a voice module in my code wouldn't accomplish anything. It would have to be compatible and--- ...Heavens, Michael, I've lost you, haven't I?"

"Not really." He gave Kitt a smile. "I understand the basics. You're basically saying that... if you put some of your code in there, it'd be like shoving an orange slice into a cut apple and expecting it to make one whole fruit."

"In a certain grocery-store way, that makes sense." Kitt smiled, and Michael... exhaled. He'd miss that smile so goddamned much. "We're working on it, but it's the mountain and we're the moles. And I don't know if we're ever going to find a thing and... I'm beginning to hate Mister Matthews." He admitted the last with his voice hushed. "And I'm beginning to wish Bonnie had never come up with the idea of where he might have gone."

Michael tightened his arm around Kitt instead of answering. He knew that saying 'me too' wouldn't be the assurance he'd want it to be.

\---

They sat there and talked for hours. Kitt kept mentioning, now and then anyway, that he needed to go back in and work, but Michael changed the subject every time. He drew it out. It wasn't supposed to be self-torture, but it was in some strange way he tried not to think about. They were left alone in that side room, and that's why Kitt was still leaning against him, even though so many of the lights were out and Michael had his jacket wrapped around Kitt's shoulders. Kitt had finally given in and fallen asleep, and Michael had no intention to keep him from it. What he did do was very carefully ease his arms around his partner, one around his back and the other beneath his knees, and lift him. These hard booth-style benches were no place to sleep, and Michael knew for a fact that the warm, soft beds upstairs would do them both a lot more favours.

Then, he decided as he shouldered open the door, he'd call Devon's office and leave a message and tell him that Kitt was overworking himself and that he, as Kitt's partner, was making the executive decision that he needed a few days off. Devon would hate it. Bonnie would probably be glad of it. She was just as protective of Kitt as he was, and he knew, somehow, that she saw Kitt... dimming with this work.

And he had a feeling that Bonnie knew exactly why, just like he did. And that was why he had no qualms doing it, even if a good majority of the reason was selfish.

Goliath. Adrienne. The drones. Acid John. That battering ram. The reprogrammings and the electric shocks and the setups and the thefts... All of the things that had nearly taken Kitt from him, and now... now it was just some stupid college kid who didn't know when to let the hell up and had decided that he just had to take a sneak peek into Foundation technology and...

And who had given him a partner he could touch and hug and finally see the smile behind the words and even if the voice wasn't right, everything else was. This was Kitt. This boy, who couldn't sleep in bed alone, was his Kitt, and for once in this goddamned second life he was going to be selfish. He was going to fight Devon and Bonnie and even Kitt himself - that damned programming clause - and he was going to do everything in his power to keep Kitt because Kitt was home and hearth and everything that mattered.

Stevie had loved Michael Long and Michael Long had died in the desert years ago. Part of him had loved her - the part that still remembered Vegas and the PD and the life he'd dreamed of that had meant picket fences and kids sent off to elementary school. He'd married her with genuine emotion. He'd meant to live that life, but he'd known somehow that, even if Stevie had lived, they wouldn't have made it. His eye would wander, and she'd find out how much he'd changed. And when he went back to the Foundation, he would've heard the joy in Kitt's voice to see him and Kitt would come out to meet him and bump him lightly - just enough to make him sit on his hood, and it'd be like nothing had changed. It'd be them again, and he'd do his best to make Devon give him Kitt again, and they'd drive. Forever, they'd just drive. The scenario had played out in his head from the moment he'd proposed to Stevie again until the night before he was going to marry.

Then things had gone wrong. But one thing was still there, still true, just like he'd thought. Kitt was there. Kitt had always been there. Even when Michael had tried to walk away, he was there. And he wasn't going to let go so easily now.

He laid his partner down on the bed they'd shared for... too long to count, now, and started untying his shoes. Kitt was too asleep to notice. The only movement Kitt made was to curl up next to him, like he always did, when Michael slid into bed as well.

"I'm not going to lose you now," he whispered and pressed a kiss to the top of Kitt's head. "You're mine."


	11. Rosetta Stone

He opened his eyes to a still-dark room. He didn't remember how he'd ended up in bed, but he knew that his back felt good, and so did his head. There was something heavy across his chest and a glance proved that it was Michael's arm. Kitt smiled. He closed his eyes once more, carefully rolling over to scoot close, to return the favour with an arm around Michael as well. He'd be irritated later. He was supposed to be working on translating that code, but it felt too good, and too right, to be so close to Michael this morning. After all, he told himself, he was also programmed to put Michael first.

Kitt dozed while Michael slept, neither of them fully waking up for a few more hours. By then, Kitt didn't even have the heart to lecture him about having interrupted his work the day before. Instead, after some soft good-mornings, they both had breakfast and, with a heavy heart, Kitt went his own way to see to the work he'd neglected the day before. It was growing inside him - the want to do anything except what he had to do. Perhaps it was some of Michael's rebellion, but as it stood, it was nothing more than unrest that he couldn't ignore. His heart wasn't in going through the code. All he could think about was being somewhere else, anywhere else, where he could be with Michael and he wouldn't have to...

...to die.

But then his mind rebelled and told him, in no uncertain terms, that he had no right to be thinking of such things. It was what he had to do, be valiant and certain in his decision, because no-one else would be. Michael didn't want him to sacrifice himself, and neither did Bonnie, but he'd already proven to both of them that that was what he had to do. He'd done it for Michael before and that moment still played before him in perfect clarity. Apologising before ejecting Michael through the T-top and taking the brunt of the blow himself. It was what he was supposed to do - he was supposed to save humanity at his own expense. And that meant working toward finding Mister Jeremy Matthews within this handheld.

Bonnie had been working as long as he had, but more with stabilizing the memory than he. She left the coding to him, for all it was just as alien to him as it was to her. Kitt thought he could've spoken with any computer. Perhaps, before this happened, he could've, but now...

Kitt shook his head and pushed the chair back from the desk. Staring at it wasn't changing anything. It was still as incomprehensible to him as... as Egyptian hieroglyphics would be to Michael.

Suddenly, he sat bolt upright. "That's it," he whispered in the voice that wasn't truly his. Kitt shoved his way down the table to the secondary terminal as he began to harness the thoughts running through his head into sensible code to begin compiling.

"What is it?" asked Bonnie as she heard the rattle of the chair's wheels along the tile floor.

"Our Rosetta Stone. Bonnie, he had to be able to interface with me, so parts of his code should relate--"

A sudden gleam entered her eyes at his words. "That's it, Kitt. That's perfect!" She was there beside him in a moment, turning on the third terminal in the line. "Let's go."

\---

Michael was waiting in silence. The lab had been a buzz of activity and, just like before, he was on the other side of the door while Kitt and Bonnie typed away on the terminals or ran over to check the memory. Their voices went at a mile a minute.

Odd thing was he was getting used to Kitt's new voice. It... wasn't what he was used to. And he didn't love it a damned lot, but it was a way for Kitt to talk to him. He wanted to hear that old voice, though. That tenor with the accent and the way that Kitt could drawl his name to make it either scathing or joking...

But now time was counting down even faster. Not day by day. Hour by hour. Or was it minute by minute now? How long would he get to see his partner before it all fell down? Would he get to hug him again? Would there be another night that Kitt needed to sleep beside him or not sleep at all?

Michael swallowed and looked away from the windows. He knew what was coming. So he didn't want to see it anymore. He didnt want to see Kitt... leaving him. It'd been hard enough at the damned dump site however many years ago, watching him sink down below the surface, but now... now, they knew Kitt couldn't come back. There wouldn't even be those shreds of memory left.

Just a body with a kid who stole Kitt from him and if Michael saw him he'd break his nose if not his neck.

So he left. He walked out of the waiting room and through the double-hinged doors and down the hallway and, finally, to fresh air and sunlight and the damned motorpool car that Devon had assigned him (them). And with that car - a stock GM without half the power, half the handling, half the response that he'd gotten so used to - he drove.

He didn't even realise where he was going until he got there. The thing that scared him once he was there was just how little time it'd taken him to get there and how unerringly he'd even managed to get down to the basin. The bridge was rebuilt. And there wasn't even a hint of the hell that had happened here. He didn't get out of the car. Didn't even turn off the engine. He sat there and wondered if this was what it would be like for the rest of his life. Forever seeing things he'd seen before, going places he'd been before, because of memories that nothing could erase.

Like how Kitt had somehow survived the impact with Karr - right over there. And the cliff where Karr had went over the first time. He could get there in less than ten minutes. He pushed aside the thought of driving over it himself. If he didn't remember Kitt (layers of secrecy between them and the government and the public, damn every one of them), then who, besides about five people, would?

\---

"What have you got so far?"

"We have thirty-two percent converted - it's enough to start running analysis."

"All right then."

One set of hands changed terminals, beginning to go through code that had been translated into a more familiar form. The algorithm had worked perfectly, all thanks to a throwaway thought--

No time for that. The two of them worked, barely looking away from the monitors to query one another about status or to stand to go check on the readouts for the hardware's stability. Unfortunately, it had been fluctuating since they'd begun the translation. Nothing to be done for it. Only now, now that it was translated, could they move the coding they found onto their own network. The process was slow, though. Time had degraded the code and it was being rebuilt as it was being translated.

At least it was familiar. At least they could see what they'd wanted to see and had finally drawn a conclusion about their findings. Now it was just a matter of making certain.

"Progress?"

"Sixty-seven percent."

"Keep going."

"How's the hardware?"

"Trying to fail."

After a heaved sigh, there were no other sounds than fingers on keys, typing furiously as the last thirty-three percent of the translation trickled from Kitt's hastily-coded Rosetta program. Two minutes after the algorithm ran its course, the hard memory they'd been working from gave out, circuits shorting in a display of miniature sparks within the lexan enclosure they'd kept it inside. The surface clouded with smoke before it all finally died.

Even without the hardware, the software resided safely on their mainframe. Now was the time for the examination.

\---

Night had fallen by the time Michael got back. It was even edging more toward morning. Surely it'd be over by now. He wouldn't have a partner anymore, because... because when Kitt and Bonnie got it into their heads to do something, they did it. They didn't fail. They... were geniuses, and what was in front of them was a computer problem. There couldn't be any better in the world to fix it than they did, and he'd seen the rig they'd thought up to transfer the kid back into his body when they found him, so...

So he put his hands into his pockets, balled into fists as they were. He couldn't have just started driving and kept going because... he still had stuff here. Important stuff. Stuff that would mark life number one and life number two as he headed, unwilling, into life number three.

He was almost to the front of the Foundation. The parking off to the side was for overnight guests and that was where he fit now. He'd be on the road tomorrow, off to somewhere, and--

And the kid was sitting on the front porch. Staring up into the sky, arms around his knees, looking... like he'd been through the wringer.

The last thing Michael wanted was to feel sorry for him but it hit in a wave. He'd been so goddamned selfish--

But he'd lost Kitt...

After a moment to catch his breath, to push himself into a careful neutral, he cleared his throat. "Uh... hey."

The kid's eyes immediately darted over to him. And then, in a movement his mind told him was an unfolding and a jump at the same time, Michael had arms around his neck and a kid plastered against him and he could hear - "Oh God, Michael. Michael, I was so worried, I didn't think you'd come back--"

"Whoa, whoa -- Wait a second--" He had his arms around the kid before he even knew, but he asked, "Kitt? Is it still you?"

He was nodding furiously in answer. "Yes, yes, Michael, and I- we found out that he was there, he had been, but-"

"But?"

"But his program failed seven minutes after initialisation."

"That-- You mean we've... All this over... over nothing?"

"And then after we found that out, you weren't there, and I was worried, Michael. I thought you'd just left because you were convinced I'd--"

There was no way Michael would admit to just that now. Instead, the idea came to him like it was the best idea in the world. Kitt was talking too much, and after all these years, there was one thing he'd never tried to shut Kitt up. This time, he did it, and it worked. Kitt was silenced as Michael kissed him, and for all he was stunned still in the beginning, his response soon became soft and warm and, when they pulled apart, breathless. New, slightly strange, and uncertain - but now, everything was changing. This just meant, they both knew, that they were still, and always would be, them.


End file.
